Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the eScience Labs session for the Troy University eColloquium. Today we’ll be introducing you to our company, eScience Labs, which provides lab kits and comprehensive manuals for online learners enrolled in distance learning science courses. We hope that you’ll find the content of this presentation helpful as you look to add more online science courses that require a lab component.
We have also incorporated a few commonly asked questions and answers in addition to our introduction.
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eScience Labs’ kits are designed to integrate into your online course as the lab component, affording your students a traditional lab experience, but one that can be completed at home.
As you can see here, each kit will include the necessary hands‐on materials to help complete each lab, a comprehensive digital lab manual, as well as safety guidelines and materials for all experiments. Along with the hands‐on materials that drive our kits, we also include supplemental virtual materials, and integrate into your Learning Management System, all of which we will expand upon in later slides.
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A full range of subjects are covered by our products for introductory‐level college science courses, offering numerous kit options for each.
Our academically rigorous lab kits and manuals are the perfect solution to allow you to expand your online science offerings, while increasing school enrollment and student success. Question: I don’t see a subject that I am developing for an online course, such as human biology. Are there any new subjects that eScience Labs is in the process of, or thinking about, developing?
The eScience product development team has a repository of labs that have been developed for specific programs. As online growth continues, many new products are brought to our attention simply due to demand, such as Human Biology, Geology courses, and even as specialized as Pharm Tech. If you have a specific lab topic needed for a course, please do inquire.
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eScience Labs covers all the same topics and concepts that you teach in your traditional
face‐to‐ face courses. Our in‐house product development team has gone through each topic and re‐created experiments that can be conducted safely at home by distance learners, without compromising academic integrity.
We offer in‐stock semester and year long standard kits, or you can choose the option of customizing any kit to match your course’s curriculum and student budget.
Question: Is there somewhere that I can view all of the different standard kit options and labs offered through eScience?
Yes. If you visit the products page on our website, you can click on each subject and explore the different standard offerings, including Table of Contents, sample labs, as well as pricing. Also, you will be able to find our customization forms as well. Once again, if you have a specific lab topic need that you do not see, our Product Development team would be interested to hear from you.
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Included in every kit is a digital copy of our comprehensive, full‐color lab manual. For each lab, our manual will help re‐introduce the concepts being covered, and guides students through each experiment, while requiring them to engage in the hands‐on exercises. Lab reports are required to ensure that students are recording their results in real time, and are submitting that data back to the instructor. Question: Are there quizzes and tests included in the manuals for easy grading of the material?
Most teachers like to create their own tests and quizzes to ensure student’s are learning the concepts important to their course, and to bring variety of questions from semester to semester. We are however expanding our teacher resource file, which includes multiple choice questions, lab setup photos, and other information that teachers can incorporate into their course as desired.
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Along with the hands‐on materials that drive each lab, we have also incorporated virtual materials that supplement the content covered in each of our labs. We provide numerous games, videos, simulations, and other digital assets that will help students of different learning styles understand and engage the content. Question: How does the virtual content work in the course development or support the hands‐on exercises?
The majority of the supplemental virtual content is to engage your learners beyond the hands‐on experiments. You will find that in labs such as microscopy and our new A&P digital skeleton, the virtual content is fully incorporated in the lab exercises with the hands‐
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All of this digital content, including the full lab manuals, can be uploaded directly into your Learning Management System (Blackboard) to give your students a single‐sign in service for all of their online course needs, alongside your lecture materials. This is also helpful for instructors, as students can submit lab reports, graphs, and charts into the LMS dropbox, making collection and grading of results easier.
Questions: Do you have to use your LMS?
Apart from LMS integration, students receive a CD with their kit, and also get access to a Student Portal through our website. This ensures that students always have a viable option for finding their lab manual and digital assets to complete their labs. At eScience Labs, we understand that no two courses are the same, so a customization option is always available. 8
For a successful online science course, the lab component needs to replicate your face‐to‐
face lab requirements, while supporting your online curriculum. We understand there are required state regulations (accreditation needs), cost and learning objectives that need to be considered when designing an online course. Our Product Development Team will take all of these important issues into consideration as we help develop your custom kit.
Question: Is the eScience Lab course accredited?
We are not an acutal course, but rather a resource for you to develop your online lab course. What eScience Labs does provide is content that supports accreditation requirements, such as concepts explored and lab hours. We have spent hours reviewing SACS, HLC, MLC, and WASC requirements. 9
eScience Labs wants to ensure a seamless integration of our kits into your online course, so we make sure to stand behind our clients with unmatched customer service and support for all instructors and students.
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Because we view safety as a critical aspect in the design of hands‐on lab kits, we provide safety videos, MSDS guidelines, and safety materials to every student. Logistical operations ensure the safe delivery of a student’s lab kit, either through direct online purchase or through your bookstore.
Question: How does bookstore ordering work, especially for my students who get financial aid through the school?
eScience Labs understands most bookstores cannot physically stock all of these kits, so we sell the bookstore redemption cards. It is a very efficient system, where students purchase the card for the full cost of the kit, and then enter their redemption code on our website, allowing us to drop‐ship the kit directly to their home. Financial aid can easily be applied through this process.
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Our dedicated employees also work to ensure that the questions and issues brought to us by you and your students are tended to in a timely and professional manner. We have live customer support during business hours, and all email inquiries are answered within 12 hours. For all faculty, we also supply complimentary teacher kits and resources.
Question: We see that you are based in Denver, CO. What do you do to accommodate students in different time zones, and international students, such as military?
Emails can be submitted 24 hours a day, and are answered in a timely manner. Our office hours are extended during peak season, to accommodate various time zones and student calls.
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eScience Labs looks forward to exploring the online science lab needs at Troy University. If you have any questions, or would like to receive any resources about our kits, please contact Rachel Dillon, or call our main office at 888‐375‐5487. You can also visit our website at www.esciencelabs.com. Thank you for your time.
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